Complete mitochondrial DNA sequences of Eliurus webbi and Eliurus minor, endemic tufted-tailed rats in Madagascar

Abstract

The Webb's tufted-tailed rat (Eliurus webbi) and the lesser tufted-tailed rat (Eliurus minor) are nocturnal and primarily arboreal rodents native to Madagascar, classified in the subfamily Nesomyinae. After species confirmation using cytochrome b, we assembled the first complete mitogenomes of E. webbi (n = 7) and E. minor (n = 3) from southeastern Madagascar. These mitochondrial genomes range from 16,310 to 16,313 nt for E. webbi and 16,296 to 16,302 nt for E. minor. These are the first assemblies of mitogenomes from Nesomyinae. This report enhances the evolutionary study and identification of Malagasy endemic rodents, and will support biodiversity research and wildlife conservation efforts.

Keywords: Eliurus; Nesomyinae; mitogenome; southeastern Madagascar.

Figure 1.

(A) Eliurus minor female subadult (Biosample SAMN49916530) and (B) Eliurus webbi male adult (Biosample SAMN49916647) sampled in the lowland rainforest of the Manombo Special Reserve in southeastern Madagascar. Body length was measured from the crown of the head to the tip of the tail. Tail length was measured from the tail base to the tip of the tail. Images are depicted at the same scale. Photos were taken by author E.N.P.

Figure 2.

Metagenome-assembled mitochondrial genome organizations of (A) Eliurus webbi (accession number PX582274) and (B) Eliurus minor (accession number PX582196) from oral swab samples.

Figure 3.

(A) Maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree of complete mitogenomes of available mitochondrial genomes for rodents in the Nesomyidae family (PP726909 and PP726911 (Denys et al. 2025), PQ310123 (Mulualem et al. 2024)) rooted with sequences from Muridae. (B) Maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree of cytb nucleotide sequences from Eliurus species, rooted with sequences from Gymnuromys. Only cytb sequences were publicly available for rodents in Nesomyinae. Eliurus sequences identified in this study are depicted in pink font. The following sequences were used: AF160520-AF160573 and AF160577 (Jansa et al. 1999), GQ420655-GQ420668 (Goodman et al. 2009), HM223602-HM223722 and KC433971-KC434031 (Rakotoarisoa et al. 2013a), JQ866514-JQ866617 (Rakotoarisoa et al. 2013b), KF058044-KF058171 and KF170838-KF170843 (Shi et al. 2013), KY753977-KY753980 (Steppan and Schenk 2017), MK052996-MK053235 (Everson et al. 2020), MK806697-MK806850 (Jansa et al. 2019), OR392529-OR392533 and OR392540-OR392545 (Sgarlata et al. 2024). For both trees, branches with <80% aLRT support were collapsed with TreeGraph2 (Stöver and Müller 2010).